When it
comes to yogurt, it’s all Greek to - well - the Greeks. Greek yogurt is the
latest diet fad to take over Europe and the United States, with millions of
fans across two continents gobbling up the creamy foodstuff that is rich in
protein and low in fat.
Straggisto is used throughout Greece as a
key ingredient for staple dishes like tzatziki dip. But the yogurt, made from
cow's milk, has never been patented by the Greek state or any Greek company,
unlike feta cheese which is now a protected EU term.
Therefore the term “Greek yogurt,” while it
has never been used in Greece, was up for the taking when Turkish entrepreneur
Hamdi Ulukaya decided to label the yogurt from his company, Chobani, as
“Greek.”
Over the course of seven years, Chobani
became the best-selling yogurt brand in the United States, with Greek yogurt
taking up 35 percent of the U.S .yogurt market, up from only four percent in
2008. But Chobani was not the first brand to introduce straggisto into the U.S.
and European markets. The Greek company Fage has been selling “Greek strained
yogurt” in the U.S. and Europe for decades.
"Fage is the one that made known to the
world the creamy texture of Greek yogurt, its protein concentration, its rich
taste," said the company's commercial director Alexis Alexopoulos. But
Ulukaya contended that calling his product “Greek” was just giving his yogurt a
label that customers would understand, regardless of whether or not the product
actually comes from Greece.
"It doesn't matter whether it's Greek
yogurt or Turkish yogurt, as long as it's a good yogurt," Ulukaya told
Fortune magazine in 2011. In an effort to lay claim to “Greek yogurt,” Fage, an
88-year-old Athens-based family company, took Chobani to court for falsely
labeling its products as “Greek.”
While the company conceded defeat in the
United States, it argued in British courts that unlike Chobani, its yogurt is
actually made in Greece. Fage won the case on appeal in January and now markets
its product in Britain as “authentic Greek yogurt.” Whereas Chobani has to
label its yogurt as “strained” in Britain, but can call it “Greek” in the U.S.
(Πηγή: foxnews.com)